Chris Hansen investigates the dark world of counterfeit tickets.

Wild Wild Web

'Wild Wild Web,' Part 1

'Wild Wild Web,' Part 2

'Wild Wild Web,' Part 3

'Wild Wild Web,' Part 4

Dateline
July 19, 2013

'Wild Wild Web,' Part 5

Dateline
July 19, 2013

'Wild Wild Web,' Part 6

Dateline
July 19, 2013

This content comes from Closed Captioning that was broadcast along with this program.

>>>it's summer concert season. headlines from justin beiber to
taylor swift
all have shows on the calendar. but this summer the
better business bureau
is warning be careful. some of the tickets for sale on places like
craig
's list are fakes. the same thing happened to us last fall. for
madonna
tickets at
madison square garden
in new york. a dateline producer and i set up a meeting to buy two of them. the seller tells us his name is
eric
. he suggested we meet at a
train station
in new jersey.

>>how much?

>>350 each.

>>eric
gives us two
computer generated
tickets that look real to us. we tell him we need to get some more cash to pay him.

>>i'm going to run to the atm. and our producer takes the tickets with her. in the meantime, i chat up our seller.

>>how do you get the tickets?

>>i bought them.

>>where did you buy them from?

>>ticket master
.

>>the online ticket merchant for thousands of events. our producer hasn't really gone to an atm. she's actually on the phone with
ticket master
. they agreed in advance to tell us whether the tickets are real or fake. of course, while the seller and i wait, he sticks to his story.

>>so we won't have any problem using those.

>>no. they scan the
bar code
and you go right through.

>>they're legit. you see a lot of things on
craig
's list where people are selling all kinds of different tickets.

>>[ bleep ]. the things people come up with nowadays.

>>finally our producer gets confirmation from
ticket master
and calls me.
eric
is still wondering about the cash. i assure him he'll soon be getting everything he deserves.

>>she's on her way. she has the money.

>>i was worried.

>>ticket master
confirmed the tickets were fake. if you look closely, it wasn't that hard to tell. remember the date on the ticket is monday,
november 1st
. slight problem.
november 1st
actually fell on a thursday. and as for
madonna
performing that night, she was actually in st. louis that night. now it's time to settle our deal.

>>good to go. awesome. the reason why i know this is a fake ticket is because on
november 1stmadonna
will be playing in st. louis. not at
madison square garden
. why don't you tell me where you got this?

>>what do you mean.

>>we just talked to
ticket master
and they told us this was a fake ticket. here's one other thing you have to know. i'm
chris hanson
with
dateline nbc
.

>>what?

>>yeah. we're doing a story on all the different things that go on on
craig
's list.

>>oh [ bleep ].

>>we just caught you selling phony tickets to
madonna
. why don't you fess up and tell us what really happened?

>>i don't know anything about this.

>>come on.

>>he has one last question for me.

>>when is this going to be on tv?

>>if you're thinking of going to a summer show, verify the tickets you buy are real before handing over your